The first white man whose eyes beheld any part of the American continent was the Norseman, Bjarne Herjulfson, who saw this land in the year 986. The first white man who, to our knowledge, planted his feet on the soil of the American continent was Leif Erikson, the son of Erik the Red, in the year 1000; and Leif’s brother Thorvald, who died in 1002, was the first white man and the first Christian who was buried beneath American sod. Thorfin Karlsefne, who landed in 1007, was the first white man to found a settlement within the limits of the present United States, and his wife, Gudrid, was the first white woman who came to Vinland. In the year 1008 she gave birth to a son in Vinland. The boy, who received in baptism the name Snorre, was the first person of European descent born in the new world. In 1112 Erik Upsi settled as bishop in Greenland and in 1121 this same bishop went on a missionary journey from Greenland to Vinland, the first visit of a Christian minister to the American continent. The last of these interesting voyages before the rediscovery of America by Columbus was in the year 1347 when a Greenland ship with a crew of eighteen men came from Nova Scotia (Markland) to Straumfjord in Iceland. Thus it appears that the Vinland voyages extended over a period of about 350 years and to within 145 years of the rediscovery of America by Columbus in 1492. From the accounts of these voyages and settlements we get our first knowledge and descriptions of the aborigines of America. While Leif Erikson was the first white man to plant his feet on the eastern shores of the American continent, it was left to another plucky Scandinavian to become the discoverer of the narrow body of water which separates America from Asia. Vitus Bering was a Dane born in Jutland, in Denmark, in 1680. He entered the service of Russia and in 1725 was made commander-in-chief of one of the greatest geographical expeditions ever undertaken. He explored the Sea of Kamchatka and during this voyage in 1728 he discovered Bering Strait and ascertained that Asia was not joined to America, thus becoming the discoverer of the extreme western boundary line of the continent.